Maxmillion Dunbar – Woo (RVNG Intl.)
“Woo” is so jubilant it’s easy to forget that it clocks only 116 beats per minute. While previous tracks like “Piano & Dream World” and “Polo” insinuate their place on the dancefloor, “Woo” insists it. Seriously, this is one hell of a sunrise tune. The B-sides are a return to another aspect of the Maxmillion Dunbar catalog. “The Drift” is a raw, meandering, hardware jam. Sharp drums bounce around with a bassline that wouldn’t feel out of place in an 8-bit dungeon sidescroller. Sparse, rough and direct. If “Woo” is for peak-time, and “The Drift” for the darkest hours of the night, then the final track “Shampoo” is to nurse the next morning’s hangover. Everything about it floats. You can even detect hints of Jon Hassell (a megamix of who’s tunes Field-Pickering compiled for his recent Truancy Volume) in its buoyant sound. Now that anyone on Soundcloud can rehash whatever track they lik,e it’s a relief to know there’s someone out there with a deep record collection and the production chops to push music into the future while still respecting it’s past.
Maxmillion Dunbar – Woo is out now on RVNG Intl.